LAS VEGAS—The jokes just won’t stop. Clint Bowyer’s sprint through the Phoenix International Speedway garage a few weeks ago has been fodder for laughs throughout the end of the NASCAR season and beyond.

There’s only one problem.

Bowyer is having trouble laughing about it.

The run, after all, was his attempt to find Jeff Gordon after Gordon had intentionally wrecked Bowyer in retaliation, ending Bowyer’s day and already slim championship hopes. NASCAR officials at Gordon’s hauler corralled the irate Bowyer before he could get to Gordon.

So when watching video Thursday of his run to the music of “Chariots of Fire” or Friday receiving a No. 15 tag to compete in the Las Vegas marathon on Sunday, Bowyer still can’t shake the reason behind the run that has everyone laughing.

“It wasn’t very funny,” Bowyer said Friday night about the run. “Did I look like I was laughing? Have you ever seen me run before?

“I don’t run for no reason. I was not very happy.”

The Michael Waltrip Racing driver won’t talk with Gordon, who was fined $100,000 and docked 25 points for his actions. Bowyer hopes the jokes might subside now that the 2012 Sprint Cup Series Awards ceremony is over and he won’t be doing much media until next month.

The pain and bitterness still is there.

“It was a situation where I was racing for a championship and unfortunately lost my hope going into the last race of the year,” Bowyer said.

So if Gordon is going for a championship in the future, there could be payback?

“You just never know,” Bowyer said.

Just how bitter is he? Bowyer left an interview session with media Thursday after the topic turned to the Gordon retaliation.

He said it isn’t as much the topic itself, but he is trying to celebrate a season where he won three races and finished second in the standings for a Michael Waltrip Racing organization that had only won two races and had never made the Chase for the Sprint Cup prior to this year.

“It was a bad thing,” Bowyer said. “Here’s what I want to get behind me because I had such a great year and I hated that happened at the end of the year because that’s all you guys (in the media) wanted to talk about.

“You guys are doing your job. That’s the story. That’s what sucked for me was knowing how good a year we had, how much pride was in that year and because of a stupid deal there, that’s what we were talking about, not the Chase and the season and I was like, ‘What the hell?’”

In his other “what the hell?” moment of the week in Las Vegas, Bowyer was presented the number tag for the Las Vegas marathon by U.S. Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi.

Don’t expect Bowyer to use it and race in the marathon Sunday.

“Did you see the guy?” Bowyer said. “I bet he can run a long ways. … I’m tired of running.”